Major League Baseball

Rivera facing down his own mortality

Published Mar. 20, 2010 3:10 a.m. ET

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Bob Klapisch

It is early morning at Steinbrenner Field, hours before the Yankees are expected to be dressed, let alone face the Tigers’ Rick Porcello. Mariano Rivera is scheduled to pitch an inning against the Tigers, but he has other issues to address.

Rivera stops Jason Zillo, the director of media relations, to make a request that has nothing to do with the Yankees.

“If you can, please get me Joe Nathan’s number,” Rivera asks. Told that it would be in his hands shortly, the Yankees’ closer planned to call his Twins’ counterpart. The conversation wouldn’t be easy, but Rivera felt obliged to at least reach out.

Nathan could use the good wishes, having suffered a torn ligament in his elbow that could end his season, if not his career. Even though they are direct competitors, Rivera and Nathan nevertheless belong to a small sub-set of ninth-inning specialists.

When one succumbs to a serious injury, the reverberations are felt throughout the fraternity.

“I feel very bad for Joe. He’s a good man, a great pitcher,” Rivera said. “He’s good for that organization, on and off the field. I’ll be praying for him.”

The suddenness of Nathan’s injury wasn’t lost on Rivera; one pitch, literally, can detour a life. The Yankees’ right-hander turned 40 in December and is beginning the final year of his contract. He knows he could easily end up like Nathan, with nearly 1,100 career innings extracted out of his elbow — including another 133.1 maximum-intensity innings in the postseason.

That’s the equivalent of two extra seasons in what’s already been a 14-year career. But Rivera, a deeply religious man, says, “There are things that I cannot control; getting injured is one of them. That’s why it was so terrible what happened to Joe — I’m sure he had no idea (it was coming.)”

Rivera has been lucky — his ulnar nerve and rotator cuff are intact — but he isn’t vain enough to consider himself immune to ravages of time. He’s lost a few mph off his fastball and finds himself looking for new, more creative ways to defeat hitters.

Gone are the days when Rivera could blow away the opposition with just one pitch — the cutter — that lit up the radar at 95 mph. In 2009, Rivera was down to 91.8 mph on the fastball, 91.3 on the cutter. As a result, he got fewer swings-and-misses than at any point in his career.

Prior to ’09, the American League made contact with 85.9 percent of Rivera’s pitches in the strike zone. Last year, however, that percentage jumped to 90.2. Additionally, his line-drive ratio jumped to a career-high 21.8 percent, up dramatically from 14.5 in 2008.

Rivera attributes that vulnerability, in part, to the after-effects of shoulder surgery, which he underwent last offseason. He says, “It took a while for everything to feel right again” while insisting he’s at 100 percent today. Still, this late in his career, Rivera knows it’s hard, if not impossible, to regain the velocity of his early 30s.

So without anxiety or ego, Rivera moves on to Plan B.

“I know I don’t throw as hard as I used to, but I’ve learned that velocity isn’t the only thing,” he said. “Remember what Mike Mussina did (in 2008). He won 20 games for the first time in his career, and he did it without any velocity.”

Rivera has safeguarded his cutter, which exploits the outsider corner against right-handed hitter, by perfecting his two-seam fastball. It’s aimed not just at the inside corner, but at the specific area underneath the hands. The goal is to keep a hitter from leaning over the plate and cheating against the cutter’s late break.

The two-seamer is a precise weapon which is effective only when properly delivered. Too far inside and a batter gets plunked. Too high and it could mean a beaning. But thrown too cautiously, a two-seamer turns into a batting practice fastball, which is why Rivera is more obsessed with location than ever before.

He still doesn’t walk anyone (just 12 bases on balls in 66.1 innings last year) and he’s still good for more than a strikeout an inning. That kind of success keeps Rivera from thinking about retirement any time soon.

“As long as I’m effective” is the only timeline he uses for the future. When asked about last October’s pronouncement that he wanted to pitch another five years, Rivera laughed and said, “That was after (Game 6 of the World Series), I was very emotional. Things were crazy.”

In a more reflective moment, Rivera says, “I’ll go year to year. One game at a time. You never know what’s in store in the future.”

That was Rivera’s lesson for the day — and the very message he was planning to share with a fallen closer like Nathan.

THE FIFTH STARTER CHRONICLES

The buzz around Yankees’ camp has been almost non-existent for the last month. There’s virtually no news coming from the clubhouse — no injuries, no position battles, no contract disputes. Even Alex Rodriguez’s connection with Tony Galea, the accused Canadian HGH doctor, has been temporarily put on the back burner.

All that’s left is deciding who the No. 5 starter will be, an audition that’s come down to Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and dark horse Alfredo Aceves. The front office considers this a win-win situation, if for no other reason than the competition has lit a spark under Chamberlain.

One member of the organization noted that Chamberlain is at his best only when he’s angry or challenged, or both. “That’s why he’s such a good reliever, because it’s all about adrenaline (in those situations),” said the Yankee insider.

The final verdict is still 7-10 days off, but it’s hard to imagine Chamberlain ending up in the rotation at this point. The No. 5 starter’s spot is Hughes’ to lose.

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